Discussion on a Scene from Watchmen - Rorschach Succumbs to his Inner Demons

I know we are leaving the area of Alan Moore's Watchmen and digging into Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis but I did not want to leave out an analysis over a scene from the previous novel read. The problem with picking a scene from Watchmen was that there were many memorable scenes to be found! I know I had difficulty finding a scene to write about for the first graphic novel essay when I thought of doing a paper involving Rorschach, A.K.A. Walter Kovacs. To use a scene with Rorschach, I needed to demonstrate a comic technique. I chose closure and a scene of Rorschach going insane to illustrate the technique.
Rorschach infiltrates into a shop owned by Gerald Grice to find a kidnapped girl named Blaire Roche. The vigilante peeks through Grice's establishment, fingering through some kitchenware. That was when Rorschach noticed two dogs fighting over a bone outside. Just by watching the canines savagely battling over a bone, Rorschach's perception of justice becomes warped. The "facial expression" on his mask illustrates this perfectly. Now this may be overanalysis on my part, but I also noticed an interesting detail in the last panel with Rorschach in shock. The window pane beside him appears to be an inverted cross. As Rorschach is warped, does his faith in justice become warped? Moore as I said in "Meet Alan Moore" was not a Christian individual (He's too busy worshipping an ancient serpent entity named Glycon) but it was a detail that I overlooked initially.

Coming upon the horrible revelation that Grice fed Roche's dead body to the dogs, Rorschach comes out with a meat axe with the dogs looking up in anxiety. We see the axe raised and then the ink blot test that resembled a split dog's head earlier. Rorschach is clear on his madness: from the moment blood from the dogs shot up on him, the true Rorschach rose from Walter Kovacs' consciousness and takes over once Kovacs fled. We don't see the dog's get chopped up but the panels are arranged that we don't need to see Rorschach doing the deed. We share his horror with his confession, with the axe explaining why Rorschach saw the split dog's head earlier before the vigilante told his story to Dr. Malcolm Long. I observed the last panel after Rorschach kills the dogs, how it turns dark and red. Could it be illustrating Rorschach's soul tainted with darkness? Could it be depicting Rorschach's worldview becoming brutal and pessmistic? That's what I reaped from my analysis.

I chose the scene (and others that relate to the scene) of Rorschach going insane because Rorschach is my favorite character out of Watchmen despite being a psychotic vigilante. He's enigmatic, ruthless, cunning and horribly disillusioned about his role as a crimefighter and the world he's futilely trying to clean up. He's a murderer, freeloader, rogue, an Objectivist zealot and a tragic figure all in one.

Till then, I hope to find an interesting scene from Persepolis and hopefully do an analysis!

- Kristopher